this is just ridiculous. although I know plenty of white people check "other" to make it SEEM like they are some kind of minority without actually having to choose one of the minority statuses.

They probably just don't want to be discriminated against. It's not so much that they want to be seen as a minority, they just don't want to be labeled as a "privileged" white person.

This is probably more of a problem for asians, however, who experience the most discrimination in admissions, and are therefore probably most likely to check the "other" box.

probably don't want to be discriminated against? ha...

Why is this funny? There's no question that whites and asians are discriminated against in admissions (though it's far worse for asians). The only question is whether such discrimination is justified by other factors. That's a debate for other threads.

There's also little question that most people don't like to be discriminated against, period. And the people who are filling in the "other" box are clearly seeking to avoid this, or they wouldn't be checking the "other" box. (I doubt they really think it will give them a positive boost, and the truth is, it probably gets them considered as white or even asian in reality.)

Yes, I agree people don't like being discriminated against. I think what was funny to me is the comment that White's don't want to seem privileged and that somehow this whole "discriminating" thing is really a huge problem for whites.

I'm not really sure why you put "discriminating" in quotes. Do you dispute that different groups are subject to different standards in admission? If not, then one has to acknowledge that discrimination is taking place. The only question, again, is whether that discrimination is justified.

Whether or not such discrimination is a "huge problem" for whites probably depends on the white person in question. White people, like every other group, come from all kinds of backgrounds. A rich, well-supported white person probably won't be hurt much by preferential admissions. They probably have enough advantages to overcome it. However, a poor/working-class white person who's had to struggle for everything they have will probably be a more borderline applicant, and may therefore be impacted more (and bothered more) by such policies.

Don't want to get all philosophical here, but Whites are always more privileged over nonwhites.

Oh, really? So a retarded, homeless white person is somehow more privileged than Will Smith, or Michael Jordan, or Oprah, or Colin Powell? Put more generally, is the child of a poor white preson, growing up in a poor area with crappy schools, really more privileged and advantaged than the child of any non-white millionaire or successful professional when it comes to educational admissions?

I realize you've been taught this, and you may even believe it. I'm simply pointing out that it makes absolutely no sense. Sure, many whites are advantaged relative to many non-whites, and this can be determined by examining factors like household income and K-12 school quality. However, the same factors clearly show that many non-whites are educationally advantaged relative to many other whites. Which is why preferential admissions based solely on ethnicity (as opposed to actual advantages) also makes little sense.

It is called "the Racial Contract" in which ALL whites are beneficiaries whether or not they choose to be.

I haven't seen a copy of this alleged contract. Can you post one for us?

One can certainly argue that, all other things being equal, it's easier to be white than non-white, in pretty much every country. So one could argue that where applicants are otherwise comparable in terms of background, the non-white should get the edge in admissions. The problem, of course, is that other things aren't always equal. There are white families in this country that are much more disadvantaged than most non-white applicants to law school, and there are non-white families that are far more advantaged (and therefore privileged) than most white families.

So I think it's important to get beyond a simplistic, self-serving, incorrect view of privilege, and understand that privilege and advantage are far more complex than some might believe.

Except the alleged advantage you claim they're "masking" may not exist in many cases. For those who are less advantaged than most non-white applicants, it's hard to say they're doing anything wrong by avoiding an unfair, prejudicial stereotyping. For those who are from similar backgrounds as most non-white applicants, the issue is at best arguable. This would really only seem truly problematic for those white applicants who are meaningfully advantaged relative to most non-white applicants, and even in those cases, it really comes down to the non-white applicant they're being compared to, as many of them may also be comparably advantaged.

If, on the other hand, preferential admissions was instead based on economics and educational opportunity, and someone was distorting their economic/educational background, your position would of course be far more justified.

I would like to point out the basic absurdity of your point resulting the deminimus likelihood of your scenario before explaining the basic purpose of diversity as Law schools seek. The millionaire black person you speak of is a rare species, however, they will never be able to change the color of their skin for an interview or anything of that nature that has nothing to do with their money. Returning to the issue of rarity, this so called privileged black person if we ignore entrenched racism, which I'm guessing you feel is entirely a thing of the past perhaps solved when civil rights legislation was passed, Oprah doesn't have children and we'll see what Will Smith's do, they are an exception not the rule. Your impoverished white person is a rarity as well in terms of law school admissions and their background goes into the matter of diversity. That would be why schools such as Georgetown Law have included in the past as part of the instruction for their diversity statement that that would be included.

Moreover, the phenomena of advantage is not simply household income, an interesting book you could read is called "The Hidden Cost of being African American," by Thomas Shapiro of Brandeis University. If we look at this from the monetary sense as Shapiro argues with a number of case studies to back it up, as much as relative income provides some possibilities the accumulated wealth of your population means that in the grand scheme of things your average white person has 82 cents of every American dollar while the black population has 18 cents. Therefore as seen in Shapiro's initial example a white family with a smaller household income is able to afford to move to a community with better schools, etc. because of assistance from their grandparents, whereas the black family with a higher income and no additional family assistance living in the same initial neighborhood is unable to afford the move and left behind despite more household income.

Looking to the real value of diversity to a Law school. Diversified view points. The whole idea of the Socratic method, like it or not it is the way Law schools do class, is to facilitate a conversation amongst the members of the class a discussion that brings out various view points and broadens the knowledge of the class. If everyone is a member of one group or even overwhelmingly so, which is still the case at any elite law school despite efforts to bring others in, the Socratic dialogue is diminished and left with little usefulness. Whether you are of the utilitarian views of Mill or like Hegel both agree with the concept of the marketplace of ideas which holds that advancements come through thesis meeting antithesis resolving into synthesis. Without competing ideas we're are left with the same sterile thoughts. It is this process acting out in us debating right now. Whether we agree on any points, which is unlikely on the fundamentals of our arguments we have been forced to think through our ideas and defend them in a manner which would not have occurred had we just agreed. The point is not that all white people and "model minorities" agree on everything, but that dialectus is best served through the widely varied views of bringing more people to the table.

While I do understand the sentiment and agree that it sucks to feel shafted in terms of law school admissions, particularly with the school of your attendance being a major factor in your initial employment options. Diversity is a valid concern of a law school. And while the majority of white people alive today do not actively contribute to overt racism or the obstacles many minorities face, those same people cannot help without active effort benefiting from entrenched advantages from the collective American past, just as minorities still struggle to gain ground they were forcibly withheld from. Admittedly many do not take advantage of these opportunities and many of those end up on the news and elsewhere and in rap videos perhaps even as the star perpetuating stereotypes of people who it is harder to believe deserve some kind of help.

Another interesting point that would be something you could read up on would be the University of Michigan affirmative action case which invalidated points being added for minority status, but decided that it was entirely legitimate to allow for an even greater number of "admissions points" to be added for legacy. Who gains advantage from that? Your poor whites stuck in bad schools in poor neighborhoods without an edge in the world are left in the cold alongside the minorities and your additionally privileged middle and upper class whites who are more likely to have parents or siblings who went to the school benefit greatly. It is incredibly difficult without this advantage to get into Yale University. Yet the gripe you take up is some perceived sense of affirmative action which doesn't officially exist and especially not in the sense of your black people over white people sense. I do agree with you that background should play a larger role in considerations as white privilege is not the only privilege that many have and that it itself should not be conflated with class privilege though it is often because of the fact that the majority of minorities are in a lower class and the majority of whites are in a higher class.

I have been batteling with the question of race my whole life..... My parents have a plethora of ethnicities in their blood, they both look white, but somehow I ended up looking pure Mexican. I have identified as white my whole life until about four years ago, when I realized racist people were rearing me as they would any other minority.....

Were they raising you, or sodomizing you?

This response indicates that you were unaware that "rear" is the preferred term for bringing up children in traditional English usage. See, e.g., http://www.bartleby.com/68/62/4962.html. But I suppose if you're hellbent on making homophobic jokes in every thread, any use of a word like "rear" or "behind" is just too great an opportunity to pass up.

This response indicates that you were unaware that "rear" is the preferred term for bringing up children in traditional English usage. See, e.g., http://www.bartleby.com/68/62/4962.html. But I suppose if you're hellbent on making homophobic jokes in every thread, any use of a word like "rear" or "behind" is just too great an opportunity to pass up.

I have been batteling with the question of race my whole life..... My parents have a plethora of ethnicities in their blood, they both look white, but somehow I ended up looking pure Mexican. I have identified as white my whole life until about four years ago, when I realized racist people were rearing me as they would any other minority.....

Actually, if you read my post, I specifically ask if he's saying racist people were raising him (bringing him up). However, not even this makes sense, unless he's saying his parents were racist against him, which seems unlikely. (He clearly indicates he's still being raised by his biological parents, not foster parents or an orphanage.) I therefore suspect he intended another term altogether.

Finally, it's difficult to argue that "rear" is still the preferred term in this area, if it ever was, which is yet another reason it's an odd (and likely mistaken) word choice.

But I suppose if you're hellbent on making homophobic jokes in every thread, any use of a word like "rear" or "behind" is just too great an opportunity to pass up.

Um, okay.

I recognize that the post was pretty incoherent, but "rear" is a common term. It certainly wasn't what hung me up. In any case, I don't think the natural assumption is that anyone was "sodomizing" him. You can pretend that you weren't trying to make one of your signature jokes, but it will just further diminish your credibility.

(I won't go into here whether classes made up of privileged whites and privileged nonwhites are really more intellectually diverse than a class focused on economic/class diversity, but an argument could certainly be made in favor of the latter vs. the former, if intellectual diversity is really our primary goal.)

I think you're being willfully obtuse about the meaning of diversity under Grutter. Part of the point is to include enough members of each racial group so that people cannot hold on to stereotypes about what black people are like or what white people think about X. To this end, of course it's important to have class diversity -- among students from all racial groups. Here are some relevant portions of O'Connor's opinion:

Quote

In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity. All members of our heterogeneous society must have confidence in the openness and integrity of the educational institutions that provide this training. As we have recognized, law schools “cannot be effective in isolation from the individuals and institutions with which the law interacts.” See Sweatt v. Painter, supra, at 634. Access to legal education (and thus the legal profession) must be inclusive of talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity, so that all members of our heterogeneous society may participate in the educational institutions that provide the training and education necessary to succeed in America.

The Law School does not premise its need for critical mass on “any belief that minority students always (or even consistently) express some characteristic minority viewpoint on any issue.” Brief for Respondent Bollinger et al. 30. To the contrary, diminishing the force of such stereotypes is both a crucial part of the Law School’s mission, and one that it cannot accomplish with only token numbers of minority students. Just as growing up in a particular region or having particular professional experiences is likely to affect an individual’s views, so too is one’s own, unique experience of being a racial minority in a society, like our own, in which race unfortunately still matters. The Law School has determined, based on its experience and expertise, that a “critical mass” of underrepresented minorities is necessary to further its compelling interest in securing the educational benefits of a diverse student body.

...

To be narrowly tailored, a race-conscious admissions program must not “unduly burden individuals who are not members of the favored racial and ethnic groups.” Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547, 630 (1990) (O’Connor, J., dissenting).

We are satisfied that the Law School’s admissions program does not. Because the Law School considers “all pertinent elements of diversity,” it can (and does) select nonminority applicants who have greater potential to enhance student body diversity over underrepresented minority applicants. See Bakke, supra, at 317 (opinion of Powell, J.). As Justice Powell recognized in Bakke, so long as a race-conscious admissions program uses race as a “plus” factor in the context of individualized consideration, a rejected applicant

“will not have been foreclosed from all consideration for that seat simply because he was not the right color or had the wrong surname… . His qualifications would have been weighed fairly and competitively, and he would have no basis to complain of unequal treatment under the Fourteenth Amendment.” 438 U.S., at 318.

We agree that, in the context of its individualized inquiry into the possible diversity contributions of all applicants, the Law School’s race-conscious admissions program does not unduly harm nonminority applicants.

In my view, it would better further the cause of disspelling stereotypes if we stopped pretending that all minorities (even privileged ones) need preferential admissions, and that all whites (even underprivileged ones) are somehow meaningfully advantaged in educational admissions. Just my opinion.